American Pastoral
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Constant Reader
message 201:
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Ruth
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rated it 2 stars
Nov 23, 2008 12:21PM
I don't think it was on religious grounds either, Pontalba. And like you, I don't think it was rebellion either. Swede was way too well behaved for that. I think it was more like an attempted metamorphisis.
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Well, Ruth, it was a difficult metamorphosis if it was, carried out very much against his father's will.
Apparently my recollections posted earlier were a conflation of thoughts from several paragraphs. A page-by-page run through of the book did not turn up the individual paragraph I thought I saw. But it would appear he was definitely trying to change who he was.
From p.19-20 there are Zuckerman's thoughts about Swede:
I don't imagine I'm the only grown man who was a Jewish kid aspiring to be an all-American kid through the patriotic war years. . .The Jewishness that he wore so lightly as one of the tall blond athletic winners must have spoken to us too -- in our idolizing the Swede an his uncoinscious oneness with America, I suppose there was a tinge of shame and self-rejection. Conflicting Jewish desires awakened by the sight of him were simultaneously becalmed by him; the contradiction in Jews who want to fit in and want to stand out, who insis they are different and that they are no different resolved itself in the triumphant spectacle of the Swede who was actually only another of our neighborhood Seymours whose forebears had been Solomons and Sauls, who would themselves beget Stephens who would in turn beget Shawns. Where was the Jew in him? You couldn't find it and yet you knew it was there. Where was the irrationality in him? Where was the crybaby in him? Where were the wayward temptations? No guile. No sartifice. No mischief. All that he had eliminated to achieve his perfection. No striving, no ambivalence, no doubleness -- just the style, the natural physical refinement of a star.
Later there is Swede talking to his mother about Dawn p314
Bucky kept trying to land the Swede. . . Bucky's mission irritated the Swede in just the way his mother had, when, some months after Dawn had become pregnant, she'd astonished him by asking oif Dawn was going to convert before the baby was born. "A man to whom practicing Judaism means nothing, doesn't ask his wife to convert... .I didn't come out here for that stuff. I never got that stuff anyway"
And later still Swede, desribing his desires to live in Old Rimrock to Dawn p315-16
That this is a place where I want to be I knew the moment I laid eyes on it. Why shouldn't I be where I want to be? Why shouldn't I be with who I want to be? Isn't that what this country is all about? I want to be where I want to be and I don't want to be where I don't want to be. That's what being an American is -- isn't it? We own a piece of America, Dawn. I couldn't be happier if I tried. I did it, darling. I did it -- I did what I set out to do. . .
. . . whom he felt like out in Old Rimrock was Johnny Appleseed . . . Wasn't a Jew. Wasn't an Irish Catholic. Wasn't a Protestant Christian -- nope Johnny Appleseed was just a happy American.
There was his desire to live the American Dream despite all the flak he got from his father.
Apparently my recollections posted earlier were a conflation of thoughts from several paragraphs. A page-by-page run through of the book did not turn up the individual paragraph I thought I saw. But it would appear he was definitely trying to change who he was.
From p.19-20 there are Zuckerman's thoughts about Swede:
I don't imagine I'm the only grown man who was a Jewish kid aspiring to be an all-American kid through the patriotic war years. . .The Jewishness that he wore so lightly as one of the tall blond athletic winners must have spoken to us too -- in our idolizing the Swede an his uncoinscious oneness with America, I suppose there was a tinge of shame and self-rejection. Conflicting Jewish desires awakened by the sight of him were simultaneously becalmed by him; the contradiction in Jews who want to fit in and want to stand out, who insis they are different and that they are no different resolved itself in the triumphant spectacle of the Swede who was actually only another of our neighborhood Seymours whose forebears had been Solomons and Sauls, who would themselves beget Stephens who would in turn beget Shawns. Where was the Jew in him? You couldn't find it and yet you knew it was there. Where was the irrationality in him? Where was the crybaby in him? Where were the wayward temptations? No guile. No sartifice. No mischief. All that he had eliminated to achieve his perfection. No striving, no ambivalence, no doubleness -- just the style, the natural physical refinement of a star.
Later there is Swede talking to his mother about Dawn p314
Bucky kept trying to land the Swede. . . Bucky's mission irritated the Swede in just the way his mother had, when, some months after Dawn had become pregnant, she'd astonished him by asking oif Dawn was going to convert before the baby was born. "A man to whom practicing Judaism means nothing, doesn't ask his wife to convert... .I didn't come out here for that stuff. I never got that stuff anyway"
And later still Swede, desribing his desires to live in Old Rimrock to Dawn p315-16
That this is a place where I want to be I knew the moment I laid eyes on it. Why shouldn't I be where I want to be? Why shouldn't I be with who I want to be? Isn't that what this country is all about? I want to be where I want to be and I don't want to be where I don't want to be. That's what being an American is -- isn't it? We own a piece of America, Dawn. I couldn't be happier if I tried. I did it, darling. I did it -- I did what I set out to do. . .
. . . whom he felt like out in Old Rimrock was Johnny Appleseed . . . Wasn't a Jew. Wasn't an Irish Catholic. Wasn't a Protestant Christian -- nope Johnny Appleseed was just a happy American.
There was his desire to live the American Dream despite all the flak he got from his father.
.....just a happy AmericanI didn't see rebellion in Swede, but only the widespread post-WWII American dream. You would see similar developments among Italians, Irish, and other ethnic groups. It was even promoted by Hollywood; if you look at old movies set during WWII, a clear effort was made to include many ethnic groups in one big mixing pot. It's hard to remember that, at that point, marriage between Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics was considered a mixed marriage. All of those divisions were collapsing and Swede was pretty typical of his generation, following his father's path in business but eventually choosing his own path in his personal life. This was easier for Swede than for Jewish people without his Nordic appearance and his non-observant family. (African Americans had a different experience, of course, but that's another story.)
I liked Swede also. He always tried to be fair and honest, he loved his family, he worked hard, and everything fell apart for him anyway. And when it did, he seems to have rebuilt his life and carried on, even though he carried the pain of what happened with Merry. How could anyone dislike this guy?
Wilhelmina, while I tend to be on your side, I think one has to ask your question of Dawn who left him and Jerry who seemed to dislike his blandness and unwillingness to make choices. Or even ask Merry.
I'm not sure a definitive reading of the book is possible. Maybe Roth is Merry; the book is the bomb; Swede is the Reader. "Why?" Swede wonders. "Why does Merry do the things she does? Why did Roth write this book? What does it mean?" I think the question of why Merry did the things she did is the natural question to ask of the novel, but I think any answer will ultimately be wrong, or at least only provisionally right. I do not think that there is a way to read or think about the novel that will result in a clear message.
Reportedly Roth was on the short list for this year's Nobel Prize. Does that mean he participates in the "big dialogue" of literature mentioned in the controversial comments of the award's spokesperson this year?
Here's a quote from a NY Times article about what the "big dialogue" might be:
"...ever since the last American to win, Toni Morrison took the prize in 1993, there has been a drift ... away from the conventions of narrative realism. This may be what Mr. Engdahl [the Nobel Prize spokesmen:], himself a post-structuralist literary critic, was referring to when he complained about 'trends in mass culture' dragging down American literature: [Americans:] tend to write, for the most part, about the world we live in, without resort to the devices of myth or fable or allegory, all of which are popular in Stockholm these days."
I'm trying to suggest here, in a convoluted way, that American Pastoral has something to do with postmodernism. Yup, I'm going there. I believe the book can be seen as either a demonstration of postmodernism, a challenge to postmodernism, or a comment on postmodernism.
Selections from the Wikipedia entry on postmodernism:
The term postmodern is described by Merriam-Webster as meaning either of, relating to, or being an era after a modern one or of, relating to, or being any of various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms (as in architecture) or by ironic self-reference and absurdity (as in literature), or finally of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language
[Postmodernism is:] irreverence for reason, and the rise of subjectivity.
Postcolonialism after World War II contributed to the idea that one cannot have an objectively superior lifestyle or belief.
Heidegger, then Ludwig Wittgenstein, then Derrida, who examined the fundamentals of knowledge… argued that rationality was neither as sure nor as clear as modernists or rationalists assert.
It is with the end of the Second World War that recognizably postmodernist attitudes begin to emerge.
It is possible to identify the burgeoning anti-establishment movements of the 1960s as the constituting event of postmodernism.
End selection
Swede can be seen as the embodiment of modernism, rationalism. To quote from the book as Russ did above: "Where was the irrationality in him?… No ambivalence, no doubleness."
Merry can be seen as the embodiment of postmodernism, an irrational (violence as irrationality) challenge to reason.
The postmodernists have taken as a project the deconstruction of reason. Certainly Merry demonstrates that concept; she destroys a post office, an information exchange. We have not been able to pinpoint reasons for her behavior because she is not driven by reason. The parallel between Merry and Roth is reinforced, the artist is generally considered to be driven by forces beyond reason as well. Is this the threat to the Swede? His modernist outlook, his security is being run over by the postmodern? Does Roth threaten the reader in the same way? Is the reader made uncomfortable by Roth's interrogation? Does the reader channel his discomfort with the unknowable into comments on message boards?
Regarding the Roth-as-Rita metaphor postulated earlier in the discussion: whereas Rita has specific information to give—Merry's whereabouts—Roth does not have specific information to convey to the reader. Instead, as Robert suggested, he has an experience, an emotional impact to deliver to the reader. It is a natural inclination of us (or is it just me?), as readers, to respond to the novel as the Swede responds to Merry's violence. We look for a reasonable explanation. But the questions Roth asks us are not questions meant to lead us to reasonable thoughts. Rather they are questions that lead the reader to engage his affect. (Incidentally, the first and last question of the book are both questions of affect, of quality: "And how did this affect him?" "And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?")
Is this forum one of the answers to all his questions? The responses to Roth's interrogation put to words and shared among the readers?
Merry represents a challenge to the Swede to find his irrationality, he will never rationally understand her, just as we will never rationally understand her. Merry represents a challenge to the Swede, and following the provisional Merry-as-Roth and Swede-as-Reader metaphor, the book represents Roth's challenge to the reader to allow for some irrationality in the interpretation of the story, to allow for the irrational side of the experience to trump the rational explanation or the clear message one might traditionally seek in a novel.
Is this the "bigger dialogue" Horace Engdahl, the spokesperson of the Nobel Prize committee, referred to? Is it a challenge for readers to forsake a purely rational reading in favor of approaching the book in terms of its contradictions?
Of course Merry runs into the same problem that postmodernism itself runs into. It is difficult, to say the least, to escape a concept of truth. Merry is successful in forsaking her father's truth, but instead of riding out the postmodern ideal of no-truth, she creates a new truth that is just as rigid as her father's.
The postmodern ideal of no-truth is probably impossible. The concept of no-truth sounds a lot like an attempt at truth; the problem of postmodernism, it is a circular, nonsense argument.
Roth tries to avoid this problem by channeling postmodernism into a work of art in a genre that allows for contradiction. Martin Luther King Jr. channeled postmodernism the same way, into poetry; appeals to dreams are certainly not rational. Postmodernism argues that power is not rational.
Link to NY Times article menioned above:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/wee...
Actually, not only do I think the parents of the school shooters at Columbine were responsible...so did the law. The parents of Harris and Klebold settled with victims families out of court. Merry was only 16 when she became a violent activist.
Andy, I think you have a lot of insight in your post. How I would take it...I see you have a polarity...your idea if that Swede is modernism and Merry is postmodernism...I think this works...but mostly...I think what is absolutely right on...is the polarity.
Merry may be insane, she may be as the critics say "chaos" but she is that in complete mirror to Swede. She is only as crazy as he is.
It's interesting to me how many readers...and how often criticism about this novel asks "what can you find wrong with this family?" "what wrong did Swede ever do?"
Oh wow. I find him completely icky. Like, thats it...that was your great ambition and dreams for your life? Wake me when its over, dude.
Merry and Swede are the cause and effect. It's an equal and opposite reaction. It's as if the family or our own ambitions are prone to the laws of nature.
If Merry is chaos manifest...Swede is control manifest.
I mean, what kind of children do you think control freaks have?
One other thing...I re-read the section, on Vintage International page 264...and those few pages...again. It is the meeting between Swede and Merry.
I believe Merry is only 19 or 20 in these pages, no? and re-reading them...I fnd her to be less than insane. She actually sounds kind of ...dare I say it...wise? Regretful and kind? Profound?
Um, I think this part where Swede grabs her face and her mouth...has a resonance with the kiss..I wasn't able to find the pages. I am very curious why other readers don't find that scene as shocking and as gross as I did. I think it' is totally unacceptable on Swedes part...and maybe shows how he believed he lived "above the laws" himself!? Not only did he sexually abuse his own daughter...she was 11.
I can see why the novel feels like it doesn't give a straight answer...but there is an interesting mimic. Swede seems to grab Merry's mouth demanding she speak. It's as if he believes a child can tell their parents the answers. It'sa funny thing. A child can tell their parents the answers and what went wrong...but generally...children don't want to tell their parents things that will make the parents suffer. This often doesn't end at childhood. The way Swede grabs Merry at their final meeting mirrored the kiss violation...it is described as violent.
When someone is in denial, the reason is because the truth is too painful...or feels like it will be too painful.
Swede gets close to a realization on these pages...264-268. Swede is heartbroken thinking of the beloved daughter raped!
(Swede violated her himslef...when she was 11! His denial his lack of understanding...does he understand how he has already violated her? )
Isn't it possible...for all her seeming chaos...that Merry has actually made a sacrifice?
Is't it possible that Merry is protecting her family?
It's not surprising that her father is too thick, too selfish and too ignorant to know this. He is King Lear after all...and demands his child "speak"!
Someone earlier said Merry would at least be more comfortable if she went to prison (sorry, maybe it was Pontalba?) and she would have warmth and food and be clean....
Merry tells him he will suffer even more if she speaks. I couldn't help but think... if she turns herself in...or is caught...her family will suffer again with further scandal...no?
Silly parents...they never realize how much their children feel a need to protect them...especially parents whose life has been motivated by "infantile" desires like "the good life": the idea that freedom is measured by being able to make more money or freedom means not part of a religion or social class.
Is that really what freedom is? I have to ask...isn't Swede selling life short? Is life really about materialism and religion being untethered by money restrictions?
If so, no wonder Steve wants to dig out The Great Gatsby! If Swede (and Merry) can't show how insane the dream is...maybe we do need to seek help with Gatsby, once again!
I wonder if the idea that we can control our lives with our desire for something like the American Dream...that we can control our destiny doesn't make us feel we can live "above the laws"...and that sense allowed Swede to kiss his own daughter sexually.
This transression is linked to desires, the idea that we are able to control life, Merry controlled her speech with bomb making...
...the mouth is a link here...Merry was "vocally excellent"...crying as a baby...speaking is not only a human activity but associated with "intelligenge" or "knowing"... the kiss...the stutter...violence curing speech...the father demanding the child to "speak"...?
I pass. On another forum it was suggested that I did not have the proper sensibilities to review The Crying of Lot 49.
I pass too. I am pretty sure I don't have proper sensibilities ...I won't get past Swede kissing his daughter sexually. ick. He's lucky she didn't bomb him literally...just his world...(wasn't it to spread the American Dream to other countries that U.S. was opposed to communism in Vietnam?)Anyways...theres my towel...thrown in...
:)
and my 2 cents...
Candy,
I reread that section, he refused her at first and did so in a very abrupt manner, self consciously really, which leads to it's own questions, but I wonder if his giving in to her [very, very inappropriately:] was another example of what his brother Jerry meant when he spoke of Swede's wanting to please everyone, and his inability to make decisions, apparently snap decisions as well.
When he refused, [p.89-90:] she turned white and said that she deserved that...so she already had suffered much rejection, I suppose partially because of the stuttering. Kids made fun of her.
Does the reader channel his discomfort with the unknowable into endless comments on message boards?
Andy,
For me at least, not discomfort, downright curiosity. I want to know why and discussion and analysis is the only route open to us to come to some sort of understanding. I like to know what makes people tick. Of course even if we have the real people in front of us and as open as in any novel, we don't know.
I particularly liked....don't have the page to hand...but the bit that speaks of not being able to know another human accurately. We always will have our own picture of that person. Usually somewhat inaccurately.
If I don't have the proper sensibilities, oh well, they're mine. :) I've never claimed to be proper.
I reread that section, he refused her at first and did so in a very abrupt manner, self consciously really, which leads to it's own questions, but I wonder if his giving in to her [very, very inappropriately:] was another example of what his brother Jerry meant when he spoke of Swede's wanting to please everyone, and his inability to make decisions, apparently snap decisions as well.
When he refused, [p.89-90:] she turned white and said that she deserved that...so she already had suffered much rejection, I suppose partially because of the stuttering. Kids made fun of her.
Does the reader channel his discomfort with the unknowable into endless comments on message boards?
Andy,
For me at least, not discomfort, downright curiosity. I want to know why and discussion and analysis is the only route open to us to come to some sort of understanding. I like to know what makes people tick. Of course even if we have the real people in front of us and as open as in any novel, we don't know.
I particularly liked....don't have the page to hand...but the bit that speaks of not being able to know another human accurately. We always will have our own picture of that person. Usually somewhat inaccurately.
If I don't have the proper sensibilities, oh well, they're mine. :) I've never claimed to be proper.
I agree Candy, about the mouth and the voice, it seems to be an important theme. The authorial voice, the relationship between the vocal apparatus and the interior life, etc.In keeping with the earlier discussion of generations and universities: Because of the generation I'm in (I wouldn't even know what to call it. I'm 28. The tail end of Gen X? The Me Generation? I don't know), because of the generation I'm in, and because of my own ridiculous experience in academia, I felt compelled to bring up postmodernism. While I think it is largely nonsense, it is hard to ignore its impact on the culture of letters these days.
That being said, I have enjoyed the discussion up to this point. Many good insights all around. I hope it will continue with or without further mention of the nonsense I brought up.
That bit about "endless comments" was supposed to be self depracating, pointed at the length of my own comments. I like everybody's posts.
Andy, Candy, I thought both of your major recent posts pretty effectively confronted the entire thrust of discussions to date in this thread, so I was hoping that either or both of you would pick up the ball and run with it in the (new) direction you think appropriate, now that the underbrush has been cleared away. I sense enough energy in your viewpoints for perhaps another hundred or more posts and I will be glad to watch the viewpoints develop.
Pass. Too much responsibility. Plus my arguments tend to be rooted in nonsense. Plus I need to reread the book before I start quoting cereal boxes.
Andy, That real life gets in the way every time. Dang! I would have liked to hear a postmodern critique of the novel. I'm sure your sense on the matter is more than my sense.
Well, eight hours without a post here, when I thought there might at least be several in response to Andy's and Candy's gauntlets that were thrown down. And my fingers are getting itchy. So I'll ramble a little with thoughts that have accumulated. No use sitting on the sidelines watching nothing happen out across the gorge.
First of all, Candy, I had truly hoped to hear you develop your thesis further as a theme for the story, even if I were one of those convicted by your observation that I minimized the overall significance of the Kiss, in addition to not reacting sufficiently to even it in itself. Whether I can argue justification for those lapses, or not, is for slightly later if the discussion of the matter springs to life here again.
However, here I would like to say that I have reread the section a few times now, and it begins to make my skin curl more each time I look at it, not so much for the eyebrow-raising impact of the kiss -- which is there for at least a tut-tut, or an oh-my -- but for the surrounding narrative that seems to me to be in the direction of ameliorating its forbidden uniqueness. Zuckerman's/Roth's narrative very definitely seems to be trying to justify that it was the kind of thing that might be expected given the circumstances -- hot sun, lolling at the beach, playing in the surf, flirting around, etc. Tomorrow, when the sun is back up, the details of that narrative can be posted for discussion in the form of direct quote.
In adition, a second thought has been running around loose in my head, concerning the closing sentences and Roth's question for the book, "And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?"
It always takes my staring hard at that final sentence to make sure I have the meaning of the double negative sorted out properly, and I always think I have, but always have tha faint feeling maybe I haven't.
If this discussion is in its waning moments, then I think the rhetorical sounding final question might be worth considering for a direct answer, instead just being left as an implied assertion. Are the Levov's open to reproach, in opposition to the implied answer to that question? I would say yes. Certainly one can reproach merry Levov for being a bomber. At least in my view, and also anyone one else in the family who contributed to that outcome. And I also think the beloved grandpa Lou -- grizzly old codger that he may be -- is open to reproach as an ignorant, imperious, opinionated, anti-Christian bigot. Who knew how to make gloves and create a successful business. Let's not forget that outstanding genius of his. And I do mean genius.
Or perhaps the message is that, yes, the family has its faults but so does every family and none can cast the first stone. This is a typical American family. Well I would disagree with that also, and suggest that Zuckerman/Roth not be so generous in making gifts to the rest of us of the more than slight blemishes in the Levov family presented here. That is a perverse sort of generosity. Which brings us back around to that other blemish, The Kiss.
Zuckerman presents it as just about the first thing in his reverie. If he was the sort of story creator who started with characters and an episode and let it run from there, then how does the rest of his story come about from that first forbidden kiss? Is that really the kiss in the Garden of Levov that brings the whole house down in the rest of the story? I hope Candy is listening.
And now for some sleep.
First of all, Candy, I had truly hoped to hear you develop your thesis further as a theme for the story, even if I were one of those convicted by your observation that I minimized the overall significance of the Kiss, in addition to not reacting sufficiently to even it in itself. Whether I can argue justification for those lapses, or not, is for slightly later if the discussion of the matter springs to life here again.
However, here I would like to say that I have reread the section a few times now, and it begins to make my skin curl more each time I look at it, not so much for the eyebrow-raising impact of the kiss -- which is there for at least a tut-tut, or an oh-my -- but for the surrounding narrative that seems to me to be in the direction of ameliorating its forbidden uniqueness. Zuckerman's/Roth's narrative very definitely seems to be trying to justify that it was the kind of thing that might be expected given the circumstances -- hot sun, lolling at the beach, playing in the surf, flirting around, etc. Tomorrow, when the sun is back up, the details of that narrative can be posted for discussion in the form of direct quote.
In adition, a second thought has been running around loose in my head, concerning the closing sentences and Roth's question for the book, "And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?"
It always takes my staring hard at that final sentence to make sure I have the meaning of the double negative sorted out properly, and I always think I have, but always have tha faint feeling maybe I haven't.
If this discussion is in its waning moments, then I think the rhetorical sounding final question might be worth considering for a direct answer, instead just being left as an implied assertion. Are the Levov's open to reproach, in opposition to the implied answer to that question? I would say yes. Certainly one can reproach merry Levov for being a bomber. At least in my view, and also anyone one else in the family who contributed to that outcome. And I also think the beloved grandpa Lou -- grizzly old codger that he may be -- is open to reproach as an ignorant, imperious, opinionated, anti-Christian bigot. Who knew how to make gloves and create a successful business. Let's not forget that outstanding genius of his. And I do mean genius.
Or perhaps the message is that, yes, the family has its faults but so does every family and none can cast the first stone. This is a typical American family. Well I would disagree with that also, and suggest that Zuckerman/Roth not be so generous in making gifts to the rest of us of the more than slight blemishes in the Levov family presented here. That is a perverse sort of generosity. Which brings us back around to that other blemish, The Kiss.
Zuckerman presents it as just about the first thing in his reverie. If he was the sort of story creator who started with characters and an episode and let it run from there, then how does the rest of his story come about from that first forbidden kiss? Is that really the kiss in the Garden of Levov that brings the whole house down in the rest of the story? I hope Candy is listening.
And now for some sleep.
It always takes my staring hard at that final sentence to make sure I have the meaning of the double negative sorted out properly, and I always think I have, but always have tha faint feeling maybe I haven't.
Russ,
If what you're thinking is that the last few lines of the book are meant in an ironic, almost sarcastic manner. I certainly agree.
They were a family and they were American. As to being the typical American family...no they were not by a long shot. If their life as a family is taken superficially, it looks good, dig beneath the surface and it starts to show the tarnishing. Maybe Roth's point is that nothing is as it appears, take nothing for granted. Swede begins the book as the All-American Star...look what happens to him, all through his own missteps.
The biggest misstep was as far as I am concerned...allowing the grandparents to pull Merry back and forth, then he compounded her insecurity with not only the kiss, but perhaps worse the rejection/abandonment he inflicted on her after the kiss. She didn't know what to think.
She had a crush on her father, it was his job to steer it away from himself and not reject her. He did neither. He didn't know how to handle the situation. He gave in to a momentary impulse and then went so far in the opposite direction...rejection. It is the parents job to give the child a home base to work from, to have to retreat to when things get confusing....I don't see that Swede and Dawn did this for her. I think they were so busy trying to follow what their parents wanted for Merry, and not insult either of the grandparents, they didn't give Merry what she really needed.
One thing that I don't believe anyone has brought up and I keep thinking about is the grilling Lou put Dawn through...no this, no that, one holiday on this side, one holiday on that side...you can't follow "rules" like that, it's ridiculous. Swede dithered his way through life never committing, never deciding. Following his father into the business was the path of least resistance for him, I liked him as a person for the most part, but the more I look and reread, the more I see that is unacceptable.
So do I blame the parents? The grandparents? Yes, but lets face it, this is a vicious cycle all through the generations that has continued and will continue. Those same parents and grandparents were the product of their parents as well.
Of course they can only work with the material they are given. That goes without saying, but think of the possibilities that Merry missed.
It's heartbreaking.
Russ,
If what you're thinking is that the last few lines of the book are meant in an ironic, almost sarcastic manner. I certainly agree.
They were a family and they were American. As to being the typical American family...no they were not by a long shot. If their life as a family is taken superficially, it looks good, dig beneath the surface and it starts to show the tarnishing. Maybe Roth's point is that nothing is as it appears, take nothing for granted. Swede begins the book as the All-American Star...look what happens to him, all through his own missteps.
The biggest misstep was as far as I am concerned...allowing the grandparents to pull Merry back and forth, then he compounded her insecurity with not only the kiss, but perhaps worse the rejection/abandonment he inflicted on her after the kiss. She didn't know what to think.
She had a crush on her father, it was his job to steer it away from himself and not reject her. He did neither. He didn't know how to handle the situation. He gave in to a momentary impulse and then went so far in the opposite direction...rejection. It is the parents job to give the child a home base to work from, to have to retreat to when things get confusing....I don't see that Swede and Dawn did this for her. I think they were so busy trying to follow what their parents wanted for Merry, and not insult either of the grandparents, they didn't give Merry what she really needed.
One thing that I don't believe anyone has brought up and I keep thinking about is the grilling Lou put Dawn through...no this, no that, one holiday on this side, one holiday on that side...you can't follow "rules" like that, it's ridiculous. Swede dithered his way through life never committing, never deciding. Following his father into the business was the path of least resistance for him, I liked him as a person for the most part, but the more I look and reread, the more I see that is unacceptable.
So do I blame the parents? The grandparents? Yes, but lets face it, this is a vicious cycle all through the generations that has continued and will continue. Those same parents and grandparents were the product of their parents as well.
Of course they can only work with the material they are given. That goes without saying, but think of the possibilities that Merry missed.
It's heartbreaking.
Hi Pontalba, I like your calm take on the matter. It gives me hope that there is a calm perspective from which to view the book.
But, yes, you do correctly point to the lines whose intent I have trouble with. Actually I take them to mean straightforwardly what they parse out to say. It did nag at me whether they might have some ironic intent, but I finally don't see it, because I don't see any irony in the book -- nor any parody, nor any sarcasm, nor any humor at all. What I do see is dead-pan, deadly serious realism. As I said earlier, I know these people and places, and the book is convincing in portraying them.
You allude to the interrogation scene. That scene in particular drives me up a wall, because I don't think I have seen a more insensitive and offensive mockery of a Christian person or their religious practice any place else in print. To me the scene shows Lou Levov at his arrogant ignorant best, and rubs me very much the wrong way.
But, I alluded to your calming effect and I'd like to end on a peaceful note. Others have named their favorite characters. The single character in the whole book whom I find unreservedly admirable is Sylvia Levov, the Peacemaker. When Lou is ranting on at dinner, and putting her down with a wave of his arm and his imperious "Don't interrupt. Let me continue! Please!," she calmly tries from time to time to divert her husband, "Lou, I'm not sure everyone is that interested in hearing all of this."
Blessed are the peacemakers. She is my kind of hero.
But, yes, you do correctly point to the lines whose intent I have trouble with. Actually I take them to mean straightforwardly what they parse out to say. It did nag at me whether they might have some ironic intent, but I finally don't see it, because I don't see any irony in the book -- nor any parody, nor any sarcasm, nor any humor at all. What I do see is dead-pan, deadly serious realism. As I said earlier, I know these people and places, and the book is convincing in portraying them.
You allude to the interrogation scene. That scene in particular drives me up a wall, because I don't think I have seen a more insensitive and offensive mockery of a Christian person or their religious practice any place else in print. To me the scene shows Lou Levov at his arrogant ignorant best, and rubs me very much the wrong way.
But, I alluded to your calming effect and I'd like to end on a peaceful note. Others have named their favorite characters. The single character in the whole book whom I find unreservedly admirable is Sylvia Levov, the Peacemaker. When Lou is ranting on at dinner, and putting her down with a wave of his arm and his imperious "Don't interrupt. Let me continue! Please!," she calmly tries from time to time to divert her husband, "Lou, I'm not sure everyone is that interested in hearing all of this."
Blessed are the peacemakers. She is my kind of hero.
I suppose Sylvia was a product of her generation though and in the end was ineffectual in her attempts to harness Lou's mouth. She meant well I'm sure, but Lou was pretty unstoppable. Well aside from the occasional fork in the face.
I saw all the grandparents as undermining the parents authority with Merry. Swede and Dawn reneged on their responsibility to Merry in my opinion and between the six of them created an unstable base and thereby the tension in Merry's life. Many children would have not been affected the way Merry was, unfortunately she did not inherit Lou's tough hide.
Everything about that interrogation scene angered me. Lou's demanding it to begin with and Dawn and Swede's acquiesce to it. It set the tone for their marriage.
I still see those last lines as heavily ironic, but am open to discussion. :)
I saw all the grandparents as undermining the parents authority with Merry. Swede and Dawn reneged on their responsibility to Merry in my opinion and between the six of them created an unstable base and thereby the tension in Merry's life. Many children would have not been affected the way Merry was, unfortunately she did not inherit Lou's tough hide.
Everything about that interrogation scene angered me. Lou's demanding it to begin with and Dawn and Swede's acquiesce to it. It set the tone for their marriage.
I still see those last lines as heavily ironic, but am open to discussion. :)
Oh dear, I really didn't mean to throw down a guantlet heh heh. I also didn't realize that confronting my distaste of Swede would be a thread killer. I am frankly surprised anyone was that interested in the family or thought Swedes life was all that and a bag of chips. surely...with all the dreams and hopes one could have in this world...weren't his hopes and dreams kind of blah?
I mean what ever happened to peace love and understandng? Volunteer work, charity, mountain climbing, skiing, service, music art, care giving, sharing faith and community? Aren't any one of those activities more interesting than being a money maker?
Well...okay...I'm just trying to give an example of why this family and it's dreams and life sure aren;t that interesting or inspiring to say, someone like me.
And...I guess perhaps my family, my sense of boudaries and personal responsibility does not have any room for sexual violation between a parent and child,.
I am not saying that the violation of Swede on his young daaughter was the only explanation of Merry's future...but it is not even partly justifiable to me on any level.
And I don't think it is for the novel either. I think it's a critical insight into lack of boundaries, of a control driven sense of materialistic desires of the family.
I don't claim to feel that they are a "typical American family"...but it seems as if they are close enough to "likable" for some readers to allow the father to kiss his daughter!
I will tell, you ...I can't think of anything so repulsive as that kiss. And even worse is the spinelessness and justification of Swede to his lack of boundaries.
Maybe the sense of freedom being associated with "all dreams and desires can come true" via hard work...means that this idea of no boundaries stopping material and comfort gains...is exteneded into the generation of their own personal boundaries.
That a parent would consider themselves the sole teacher of how love should be manifested for a child...or demonstrated is gross. That the father was so self serving and so self involved he thought it was his role to teach his daughter physical lve is revolting...even more revolting than the actual kiss.
I have absolutely no problem with the final questions of the novel...either ironic or deadpan literal.
"And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?"
Everything.
But most of all their ideal that they are entitled to whatever dreams they want and that that entitlement blurs their sense of community responsibility and allows them to feel they are the center of the universe even to the point of robbing their child of her rites of passage.
What kind of a parent would think no one could ever love their homely child?
What kind of a parent would belive they should introduce a sexual rite of passage to their child?
The appropriate response..."I know someday someone in the world will recognize what your mother and I love about you and they will want to share happiness and love and build a family with you"
Only a complete control freak would be so sick to their child and take on that rite of passage along with feeling sorry for their kid!
Really... I am so grossed out by that event...almost more than Merry killing people...and trust me that frightened the hell out of me...but a dad kissing their his daughter sexually? Ambulance!
I'd say Swede's self importance is the epitome of postmodernism and the idea we can work hard and find materialistic and a "good life"...
How can it be a good life without the others? Without the whole family and the whole community?
Hi Candy, Big Welcome Back!
No I don't think you killed the thread. I think it is just the effect of the Holiday coming up -- the big American Pastoral, in fact -- and people getting tied up. Maybe some feel they have nothing more to contribute, but I don't think that is a major issue with continuing a discussion here. I feel people will jump in again when they see a point for comment.
This post is to let you know I heard you. To figure out a way to respond will take a little careful time thinking, so I'll have to defer a meaningful response to a separate post. The immediate issue I see is that I agree with much or even most of what you say, yet I react differently to reading the book. And figuring out why that is will require some careful introspection
So I'll be back. If you will. :)
No I don't think you killed the thread. I think it is just the effect of the Holiday coming up -- the big American Pastoral, in fact -- and people getting tied up. Maybe some feel they have nothing more to contribute, but I don't think that is a major issue with continuing a discussion here. I feel people will jump in again when they see a point for comment.
This post is to let you know I heard you. To figure out a way to respond will take a little careful time thinking, so I'll have to defer a meaningful response to a separate post. The immediate issue I see is that I agree with much or even most of what you say, yet I react differently to reading the book. And figuring out why that is will require some careful introspection
So I'll be back. If you will. :)
And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?The kiss between the Swede and his daughter is a mistake which haunts him and the first thing the Swede goes to when considering what went wrong. It is his greatest offense. But that’s it. In the context of his entire life I don’t see it as a major transgression. It’s bad but it’s not enough to neatly explain Merry’s violent behavior. Beyond this kiss, I see the Swede’s life as decent and even exemplary. Therefore, the last two lines of the novel strike me as straight on questions to which the narrator has no adequate answer. I do not blame the parents for Merry’s behavior. I agree that Merry was in reaction to her parents, but whatever limitations there were to Swede and Dawn’s behavior, it was not the equal to multiple murders.
A quote that I like on p. 413, Vintage edition referring to the Swede’s expections:
To his way of thinking it was simple: you had only to carry out your duties strenuously and unflaggingly like a Levov and orderliness became a natural condition, daily living a simple story tangibly unfolding, a deeply unagitating story, the fluctuations predictable, the combat containable, the surprises satisfying, the continuous motion an undulation carrying you along with the utmost faith that tidal waves occur only off the coast of countries thousands and thousands of miles away—or so it all seemed to him once upon a time, back when the union of beautiful mother and strong father and bright, bubbly child rivaled the trinity of the three bears.
Robt
Hey Russ, I had a kind of busy weekend and that is why I was both trying to take a break from the computer and also too busy to return to this thread. Also..I have a darned difficult time finding these side discussions. I have to either go through the link up in "reading list" or through my e-mail. I can't find it otherwise...I would like to give more attention to the speaking, kiss, mouth, stutter imagery...I just don't know if I can have the time to go throught the book in such a way.
I love and embrace the many ways we react differently to the book over all. So go for it! And I will be back!
Robt, interesting stuff. I must tell you...that quoted paragraph makes my skin crawl.
As much as I am interested in the potential connections between speaking, kissing, stuttering etc...I am also interested in this description fof somewahat machinery or robotic "nature"...and that Swede works in a glove factory.
I think the idea of a glove factory s quite intense for me because it is something that prevents skin and hands from touching...not only as fashion or protection. But hands blocked contact blocked...so for me the devotion to a glove factory is also a devotion to keeping human contact "at arms length".
I also will totally understand if maybe a feamle response might be different to the "kiss"...I do have a few male friends, both straight and gay...who were abused or had inappropriate beahviour as children or young people. Their responses run a gamut of levels of distaste and "stiff upper lip" and recovery. I would tend to say...that females might find this fathers behaviour much more repulsive? Maybe?
The kiss between the Swede and his daughter is a mistake which haunts him and the first thing the Swede goes to when considering what went wrong. It is his greatest offense. But that’s it. "...Robt...to me that is enough. He could be Mother Theresa or St Christopher or some such. "but thats it" is too much! His violation is massive.
Robt, it's not good enough that he is haunted...it's a violation enough to make up for a hundred violations.
There isn't almost anything short of actual sexual intercourse/rape that would be as tramatic to a child or that a prent could do. He could beat her senselessly and it still would be less than a sexual violation.
Way too much...nothing ever besides facing it and verbally apologising and absolutely making atonement for that kiss is enough...in my world...
I don't knwow...but I do tend to be pretty hardcore about this subject and behaviour.
Only worse than the kiss...is the lack of dialogue or recovery or therapy about the situation. I accept that Swede does regret it and ponders it's significance...
...but sadly...parents are usually too afraid of the pain of responsibility to face truth. It often takes a support system for a parent to be able to be truthful about their culpability.
I don't think even the rape of a child would justify them becoming dangerous or violent...not at all. I want to be very clear about this.
But this family...I am notas attracted or as charmed about them.
I think the italicized quote you share Robt has a little to do with my feeling of nature and a force behind the idea that we can control or set up a series of energies through "hard work commitment ideals" and they will robotically carry us to the "good life"
Or dear Buddha...p.p-p-lease let me be making sense here...does this make any sense to you all?
I do not expect other readers to find the kiss as repulsive as I do...but I don't understand why one wouldn't be as upset by it. There is almost nothing else as bad a parent could do to a kid.
I would be quite confident in saying all of my friends, my sister, any girlfriends would also find it totally unacceptable...a link to Merry's behaviour and repulsive...but maybe we are a generation that has lived with public service announcements and a strong sense of boundaries and confidence...unlike that Swede dude...yuck! I'd also venture to say that all my grandparents and my parents would find that kiss inappropriate and revolting...and I will take an informal poll tonight at supper with a group of four women...
Oh dear, I really didn't mean to throw down a guantlet heh heh.
I also didn't realize that confronting my distaste of Swede would be a thread killer. I am frankly surprised anyone was that interested in the family or thought Swedes life was all that and a bag of chips. surely...with all the dreams and hopes one could have in this world...weren't his hopes and dreams kind of blah?
I think my previous response covered most of this, but a drive through any upscale suburb like Old Rimrock will give one the impression that many peopl do indeed find that kind of life OK (insofar as we are given to speculate about what kinds of lives they do have).
I mean what ever happened to peace love and understandng? Volunteer work, charity, mountain climbing, skiing, service, music art, care giving, sharing faith and community? Aren't any one of those activities more interesting than being a money maker?
Nothing happened to them. Many people still pursue such activities with fulfillment and I suppose one can find them in other novels, just not this one. And some people still do feel that they have to work to earn a living first before other fulfilling activities can be pursued.
Well...okay...I'm just trying to give an example of why this family and it's dreams and life sure aren;t that interesting or inspiring to say, someone like me.
Clearly they are not. But surely you have noticed that there are many ways people do find fulfillment in life. Sounds like this might not have been the book for you.
And...I guess perhaps my family, my sense of boudaries and personal responsibility does not have any room for sexual violation between a parent and child,.
I am not saying that the violation of Swede on his young daaughter was the only explanation of Merry's future...but it is not even partly justifiable to me on any level.
And I don't think it is for the novel either. I think it's a critical insight into lack of boundaries, of a control driven sense of materialistic desires of the family.
I think you raise three related issues, "violation," "boudaries" "materialistic desires."
I think "violation" is not a term used in the book, nor is the exact nature of the kiss described, nor was the kiss forcibly taken. But let's agree on "violation."
"Boundaries"? Yes he clearly overstepped a commonly recognized boundary.
"materialistic desires"? Yes many have claimed ours is a materialistic sociery. Does materialsim induce lack of boundaries? I would say "not proven." Nor suggested in the book either.
I don't claim to feel that they are a "typical American family"...but it seems as if they are close enough to "likable" for some readers to allow the father to kiss his daughter!
There I would definitely disagree with the connection you suggest. There are many likable families with no conception whatever that daughters are allowed to be kissed by their fathers. I do not see such a connection. What I see is fiction and willing suspension of disbelief more likely.
I will tell, you ...I can't think of anything so repulsive as that kiss. And even worse is the spinelessness and justification of Swede to his lack of boundaries.
If you are thinking of the surrounding words justifying how it happened, I agree they are severely open to question about just what Zuckerman thought he was up to in his narration. Or Roth. I find the words repulsive. The kiss, see previous.
Maybe the sense of freedom being associated with "all dreams and desires can come true" via hard work...means that this idea of no boundaries stopping material and comfort gains...is exteneded into the generation of their own personal boundaries.
I don't know how people set boundaries. That is a large topic it seems to me. I wouldn't be quick, though, to associate lack of personal boundaries with boundless material gains and comfort.
That a parent would consider themselves the sole teacher of how love should be manifested for a child...or demonstrated is gross. That the father was so self serving and so self involved he thought it was his role to teach his daughter physical lve is revolting...even more revolting than the actual kiss.
I take exception here also. I don't notice at all that anyone considered themself the sole teacher of love for their child, much less physical love, nor that they viewed it as exclusively their role. You see it that way. I don't.
I have absolutely no problem with the final questions of the novel...either ironic or deadpan literal.
"And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?"
Everything.
But most of all their ideal that they are entitled to whatever dreams they want and that that entitlement blurs their sense of community responsibility and allows them to feel they are the center of the universe even to the point of robbing their child of her rites of passage.
I see them living life, not regarding themselves as the center of the universe. Rites of passage were discussed by Rita and seemingly accomplished, not robbed.
What kind of a parent would think no one could ever love their homely child?
I miss the point. Did someone?
What kind of a parent would belive they should introduce a sexual rite of passage to their child?
No kind, and I don't think these parents did either.
The appropriate response..."I know someday someone in the world will recognize what your mother and I love about you and they will want to share happiness and love and build a family with you"
Only a complete control freak would be so sick to their child and take on that rite of passage along with feeling sorry for their kid!
I don't think Swede took on a sexual rite of passage (in a usual sense of the term) or felt sorry for his child.
Really... I am so grossed out by that event...almost more than Merry killing people...and trust me that frightened the hell out of me...but a dad kissing their his daughter sexually? Ambulance!
I repeat. Sexually? Not proven. If statutorily, then I would again say fiction and willing suspension of disbelief.
I'd say Swede's self importance is the epitome of postmodernism and the idea we can work hard and find materialistic and a "good life"...
Many people have that idea and it doesn't take postmodernism to find it. Gatsby?
How can it be a good life without the others? Without the whole family and the whole community?
Depends entirely on the person I would say.
I also didn't realize that confronting my distaste of Swede would be a thread killer. I am frankly surprised anyone was that interested in the family or thought Swedes life was all that and a bag of chips. surely...with all the dreams and hopes one could have in this world...weren't his hopes and dreams kind of blah?
I think my previous response covered most of this, but a drive through any upscale suburb like Old Rimrock will give one the impression that many peopl do indeed find that kind of life OK (insofar as we are given to speculate about what kinds of lives they do have).
I mean what ever happened to peace love and understandng? Volunteer work, charity, mountain climbing, skiing, service, music art, care giving, sharing faith and community? Aren't any one of those activities more interesting than being a money maker?
Nothing happened to them. Many people still pursue such activities with fulfillment and I suppose one can find them in other novels, just not this one. And some people still do feel that they have to work to earn a living first before other fulfilling activities can be pursued.
Well...okay...I'm just trying to give an example of why this family and it's dreams and life sure aren;t that interesting or inspiring to say, someone like me.
Clearly they are not. But surely you have noticed that there are many ways people do find fulfillment in life. Sounds like this might not have been the book for you.
And...I guess perhaps my family, my sense of boudaries and personal responsibility does not have any room for sexual violation between a parent and child,.
I am not saying that the violation of Swede on his young daaughter was the only explanation of Merry's future...but it is not even partly justifiable to me on any level.
And I don't think it is for the novel either. I think it's a critical insight into lack of boundaries, of a control driven sense of materialistic desires of the family.
I think you raise three related issues, "violation," "boudaries" "materialistic desires."
I think "violation" is not a term used in the book, nor is the exact nature of the kiss described, nor was the kiss forcibly taken. But let's agree on "violation."
"Boundaries"? Yes he clearly overstepped a commonly recognized boundary.
"materialistic desires"? Yes many have claimed ours is a materialistic sociery. Does materialsim induce lack of boundaries? I would say "not proven." Nor suggested in the book either.
I don't claim to feel that they are a "typical American family"...but it seems as if they are close enough to "likable" for some readers to allow the father to kiss his daughter!
There I would definitely disagree with the connection you suggest. There are many likable families with no conception whatever that daughters are allowed to be kissed by their fathers. I do not see such a connection. What I see is fiction and willing suspension of disbelief more likely.
I will tell, you ...I can't think of anything so repulsive as that kiss. And even worse is the spinelessness and justification of Swede to his lack of boundaries.
If you are thinking of the surrounding words justifying how it happened, I agree they are severely open to question about just what Zuckerman thought he was up to in his narration. Or Roth. I find the words repulsive. The kiss, see previous.
Maybe the sense of freedom being associated with "all dreams and desires can come true" via hard work...means that this idea of no boundaries stopping material and comfort gains...is exteneded into the generation of their own personal boundaries.
I don't know how people set boundaries. That is a large topic it seems to me. I wouldn't be quick, though, to associate lack of personal boundaries with boundless material gains and comfort.
That a parent would consider themselves the sole teacher of how love should be manifested for a child...or demonstrated is gross. That the father was so self serving and so self involved he thought it was his role to teach his daughter physical lve is revolting...even more revolting than the actual kiss.
I take exception here also. I don't notice at all that anyone considered themself the sole teacher of love for their child, much less physical love, nor that they viewed it as exclusively their role. You see it that way. I don't.
I have absolutely no problem with the final questions of the novel...either ironic or deadpan literal.
"And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?"
Everything.
But most of all their ideal that they are entitled to whatever dreams they want and that that entitlement blurs their sense of community responsibility and allows them to feel they are the center of the universe even to the point of robbing their child of her rites of passage.
I see them living life, not regarding themselves as the center of the universe. Rites of passage were discussed by Rita and seemingly accomplished, not robbed.
What kind of a parent would think no one could ever love their homely child?
I miss the point. Did someone?
What kind of a parent would belive they should introduce a sexual rite of passage to their child?
No kind, and I don't think these parents did either.
The appropriate response..."I know someday someone in the world will recognize what your mother and I love about you and they will want to share happiness and love and build a family with you"
Only a complete control freak would be so sick to their child and take on that rite of passage along with feeling sorry for their kid!
I don't think Swede took on a sexual rite of passage (in a usual sense of the term) or felt sorry for his child.
Really... I am so grossed out by that event...almost more than Merry killing people...and trust me that frightened the hell out of me...but a dad kissing their his daughter sexually? Ambulance!
I repeat. Sexually? Not proven. If statutorily, then I would again say fiction and willing suspension of disbelief.
I'd say Swede's self importance is the epitome of postmodernism and the idea we can work hard and find materialistic and a "good life"...
Many people have that idea and it doesn't take postmodernism to find it. Gatsby?
How can it be a good life without the others? Without the whole family and the whole community?
Depends entirely on the person I would say.
Candy, We seem to have a mind gulf here. In all of my life I have never heard the subject discussed of a parent kissing a child on the lips. I have two daughters and I have never done it. I have never heard anything about anyone else doing it either. I have never heard anything about its status in law, whether criminal or not. And I have never seen anything about psychological consequences either. It is a totally new topic to me.
"Boundaries" I have heard of but only as a relatively recent word.
You on the other hand seem to have specific modern knowledge of its significance, not only your own opinions and reactions, but knowledge or training or maybe clinical experience or maybe reading. I think it would be educational for me, and helpful in the discussion, if you would share your sources of knowledge to whatever extent you are willing.
"Boundaries" I have heard of but only as a relatively recent word.
You on the other hand seem to have specific modern knowledge of its significance, not only your own opinions and reactions, but knowledge or training or maybe clinical experience or maybe reading. I think it would be educational for me, and helpful in the discussion, if you would share your sources of knowledge to whatever extent you are willing.
I think the idea of a glove factory s quite intense for me because it is something that prevents skin and hands from touching...not only as fashion or protection. But hands blocked contact blocked...so for me the devotion to a glove factory is also a devotion to keeping human contact "at arms length".
Candy, I get the exact opposite from his involvement in the glove factory. He was totally involved with the workers, he learned the trade from the ground up, yes of course, but he was not a 'worker bee', he ran the operation, supervising and selling product to the stores. His great skill at relating to the buyers and owners of the stores is even remarked on and admired by his brother Jerry, you know, Jerry the brother was so critical of him for the most part.
Also by taking over the factory he was keeping with his family tradition. No, if anything his involvement with the factory proved his people skills, and his being in touch with family.
As far as the kiss is concerned, I've already voiced my opinion, it was wrong of him and stupid, but I'll reiterate that I feel the immediate rejection by Swede of Merry afterwards was more difficult for her to deal with than anything. The child already felt rejected, and a stutter.....when her beloved father rejected her so thoroughly after his transgression she didn't know what to do or how to deal with it. I think he rejected her because he scared himself, but there was no excuse for any of it.
Candy, I get the exact opposite from his involvement in the glove factory. He was totally involved with the workers, he learned the trade from the ground up, yes of course, but he was not a 'worker bee', he ran the operation, supervising and selling product to the stores. His great skill at relating to the buyers and owners of the stores is even remarked on and admired by his brother Jerry, you know, Jerry the brother was so critical of him for the most part.
Also by taking over the factory he was keeping with his family tradition. No, if anything his involvement with the factory proved his people skills, and his being in touch with family.
As far as the kiss is concerned, I've already voiced my opinion, it was wrong of him and stupid, but I'll reiterate that I feel the immediate rejection by Swede of Merry afterwards was more difficult for her to deal with than anything. The child already felt rejected, and a stutter.....when her beloved father rejected her so thoroughly after his transgression she didn't know what to do or how to deal with it. I think he rejected her because he scared himself, but there was no excuse for any of it.
The Swede’s expectation as I quoted above (Vintage, p. 413) seems like a prevalent attitude from Swede’s generation (roughly my father’s generation). Follow tradition, work hard and things will go all right. ( I accept Andy’s idea that his is a modern perspective.) It is not the road I have taken, yet I still admire it. I have friends my age who have taken this road and live on the Swede’s road to boot. Professional men & women who live in the greater Old Rimrock area some of whom have had bombs go off in their lives (metaphorically speaking) and some of whom haven’t (as far as I can tell). I have shunned my tradition, embraced artistic freedom and a bomb has gone off in my life (I have AIDS). Nor is big trouble the necessary outcome of a less traditional life. No perspective or lifestyle is exempt from something terrible happening, seems to me. Zuckerman thinks the Swede’s expectation is naïve but he is also sympathetic to it. Candy, I like your hit that the gloves represent a barrier to direct touching. Women’s dress gloves are the epitome of refinement, “civilization,” and cleanliness, and can connote stand-offishness, snobbery and remove.
Robt
Russ, I have to get a copy...I read it library wise and wish I had taken some notes.I have absolutely no issue with families kissing, and have been around many European families that it is not uncommon for even the men to kiss each other on the the lips.
I shall have to quote from the circumstances of the memory in the novel to likely support why it was repulsive to me. I know that Swede himself describes his actions as (paraphrase!) I think he says parent misstep.
I agree with Pontalba that Swede's rejection of Merry after the event seems more traumatic and left unresolved.
Russ, I don't think I have some special information about kisses and inappropriate behaviour in families. To me the kiss was described as passionate.
...and Swede knows something is amiss with that kiss. It wasn't a fathers kiss...Merry asked to be kissed like he kissed his wife/her mother. (I again...do not remember the exact phrasing)
I believe this is a type of curiousity that is normal to a child...but his deciding to act on it is what is repulsive. He says it was a missstep. I believe a misstep is downplaying the event.
A child being kissed by their parent passionately...like her parents kissing... is giving a child a bizarre message and behaviour. I don't think I need to look up any clinical definitions do I? Really? Or laws?
Let me put it this way...even if he pecked her on the cheek...after her request for a kiss like he gave her mum...it would have been wrong. It's as if he had no idea of a sensible fatherly response. So I believe the child asking for that kind of kiss was reason enough for the father to direct the conversation about growing up...falling in love...or dating etc etc. Not demonstrating! Yikes!
I quickly tried to find the segment online...but couldn't but I did find several reviews and articles that basically described "the kiss" as such...
was it the passionate, somewhat incestuous kiss he had given her when she was eleven to ease her embarrassment after having asked him to kiss her like he kisses mom
I don't have an expert source...only myself. I don't think a parent eases embarassment by a demonstration of a passionate adult kiss!
I asked a couple women tonight "in a novel...if an 11 year old asks her dad to kiss her like he kisses her mum how do you feel about that?" And..."how do you feel if he kisses her 'passionately'?"
I can tell you the response I got was faces of revulsion.
I don't have sources...it's a deal breaker.
It's a deal breaker on several levels...
From that moment in the novel Swede was lost to me...I kept hoping he might deal with it but he never did. And I'll tell ya something...I can't imagine any parent leaving their young daughter homeless and in danger.
Um here is soemthing from a web site of a "reading guide"
The passionate kiss that the Swede gave Merry when she was eleven was a once-in-a-lifetime transgression. "Never in his entire life, not as a son, a husband, a father, even as an employer, had he given way to anything so alien to the emotional rules by which he was governed" [p. 91:]. Later the Swede fears that this moment precipitated the infinite anger of her teenage years. Is this conclusion erroneous? What does it reveal?
Russ regarding post 248...I think my only "source" is from knowing adults who had inappropriate contact with adults when children, which I believe I had said in my earlier post.
I can tell you Russ, I know many women who had memories of behaviour in their families that bothered them. Sometimes it was a grope, or a touch, or a slow turn away of affection by a father (I've had a couple of girlfriends who remember when their parents stopped hugging or holding them and their sorrow associated with development...being rejected as they turned into adults) to much worse and more overt inappropriate contact.
I believe we could probably find a precedent for this observation in other novels and literature...but I am drawing a blank at this moment, sorry. I would say it is a pretty familiar observation that weight issues in women are corelated to their body image at their age of development. Anorexia is associated with girls not wanting to develop female curves and overweight to disquise female curves...so Merry could have become an overweight girl and that might be as far as her trauma went.
It is a stroke of brilliance that Roth has written the Swedes transgression so that readers might actually think it was not significant...and I seem to recall Swede justifying his reasons for the kiss....yuck!
I believe part of my repulsion at this segment of the novel is because I know people who have had inappropriate contact with caregivers in their childhood and how it haunts them. I believe without resolution Merry was doomed from that moment. For most women...it might have only manifested as risky sexual acting out, as weight gain (aren't we told Merry gets overweight?) and poor judgement in relationships and work.
Merry's destructiveness is unusual because she vents it outside...where most of the people I know who have had inappropriate contact with adults as children usually manifest self destructive behaviour.
Robt and Pontalba...I see what you both say about the gloves. I think it was interesting how much care Swede put into his factory...and I think Robt has described some great images that gloves bring to mind.
p.s. because I did not have a copy on hand this evening and I wanted to see my own opinion of the kiss in comparison to critical work referencing the kiss...I surfed around and the two italicized quotes I add here are from these sites:
http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/re...
http://www.suscept.org/documents/sost...
Candy, Thanks for that lengthy response. I'll certainly think about it. While the site was down just now I put together the following thoughts, which now may be largely superseded, but I'll offer them anyway.
Candy, Been sleeping on our conversation and the following seems to summarize the issues between us.
1. You believe strongly that the kiss was the most horrible thing that could have been done to Merry, short of physicallly raping her.
2. You believe that the book does not take it sufficiently seriously.
3. You believe that we do not take it suffficiently seriously.
#1 is your viewpoint, I think, which we are trying to discuss.
#2 is correct. The book does indeed not take it as seriously as you do. Agreed.
#3 I would like to hear why I should share your view more than I seem to. I have heard 1 and 2 and I don't think repetition is going to do it for me.
#4 I very much wish the discussion will continue. I can see possibilities for a novel almost identical with "American Pastoral" but with a mythic structure compatible with your viewpoint, and I think it would make interesting reading. It would be more or less like a morality play, ending with Swede entirely destroyed, and Merry triumphant as Avenger. Only the ending need be diffferent from "American Pastoral." I think it would be quite reminiscent of the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Especially, thank you for the two citations.
Candy, Been sleeping on our conversation and the following seems to summarize the issues between us.
1. You believe strongly that the kiss was the most horrible thing that could have been done to Merry, short of physicallly raping her.
2. You believe that the book does not take it sufficiently seriously.
3. You believe that we do not take it suffficiently seriously.
#1 is your viewpoint, I think, which we are trying to discuss.
#2 is correct. The book does indeed not take it as seriously as you do. Agreed.
#3 I would like to hear why I should share your view more than I seem to. I have heard 1 and 2 and I don't think repetition is going to do it for me.
#4 I very much wish the discussion will continue. I can see possibilities for a novel almost identical with "American Pastoral" but with a mythic structure compatible with your viewpoint, and I think it would make interesting reading. It would be more or less like a morality play, ending with Swede entirely destroyed, and Merry triumphant as Avenger. Only the ending need be diffferent from "American Pastoral." I think it would be quite reminiscent of the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Especially, thank you for the two citations.
I just caught a PBS documentary on the Sixties. In it someone said that 1968 was the cusp between hope and rage. This is when violence emerged as a visible aspect of the protest movement which upset many peace activists as well as conservatives. A couple of facts: Out of the 60s protests also came the movements for environmental, black, women’s and gay rights. In 1968 there was a women’s protest against the Miss America pageant.Robt
That's an interesting observation, Robert, since I certainly felt that shift during my own life, from being a hopeful liberal to becoming a target of violent rage, and also because my children were growing up then. It explains a lot that puzzled me then.
I didn't get all worked up over the kiss because it was part of Zuckerman's imaginings. It does not weigh any more or less of an impression than pictures of monks self-immolating, or arguments with Lou Levov. It's just another possible cause in the run up, but not THE cause, since Zuckerman invents it. Which is exactly why Roth writes it that way instead of putting the kiss in Jerry's brief rant on Swede's life.
It looks like Zuckerman himself may also be part of the confusion, since he seems to describe the kiss two different ways in the minds of two different people.
On p91 we see Zuckerman's description:
... he lost his vaunted sense of proportion, drew her to him with one arm, and kissed her stammering mouth with the passion she had been asking for all month long without knowing what she was asking for.
while on p92, one paragraph later, we see Zukerman's description of Swede's anguished recollections:
And later he wondered if this strange parental misstep was not the lapse from responsibility for which he paid the rest of his life. The kiss bore no resemblance to anything serious, was not an imitation of anything, had never been repeated, had itself lasted five seconds. . .ten at most . . . but after the disaster, when he went obsessively searching for the origins of their suffering [etc:]
I present this, without comment, as source material for the discussion, so we are at least all on the same pages.
On p91 we see Zuckerman's description:
... he lost his vaunted sense of proportion, drew her to him with one arm, and kissed her stammering mouth with the passion she had been asking for all month long without knowing what she was asking for.
while on p92, one paragraph later, we see Zukerman's description of Swede's anguished recollections:
And later he wondered if this strange parental misstep was not the lapse from responsibility for which he paid the rest of his life. The kiss bore no resemblance to anything serious, was not an imitation of anything, had never been repeated, had itself lasted five seconds. . .ten at most . . . but after the disaster, when he went obsessively searching for the origins of their suffering [etc:]
I present this, without comment, as source material for the discussion, so we are at least all on the same pages.
Re my previous post #256
I've been staring hard, and those two passages boggle my mind. Close reading suggests that
1. Zuckerman is narrating the occasion of the Kiss as part of his imaginary "realistic chronicle."
2. Swede is looking back and sincerely describing it differently.
If we accept Zuckerman's version as correct, here we have Zuckerman having Swede misrepresenting the events of the Kiss to himself, where no one can hear, inside his own brain which is being imagined by Zuckerman, inside an imaginary character inside an imagined realistic rendition of the story by Zuckerman. That layering and distancing certainly has to count as a tour-de-force for postmodernist style. Three cheers for Roth! I think. /scratching head/
In terms of literary significance for the story, it would seem that right there, in the earliest episode of the realistic chronicle, Zuckerman is deftly laying the groundwork for either regarding Swede's recollections as unreliable, or perhaps Swede himself as unreliable, or else showing Swede in denial with respect to the events as they happened.
That strikes me as very tightly woven and carefully constructed story-telling by Roth. Three cheers again for Roth! I think. That Zuckerman is no schlepper. :)
I've been staring hard, and those two passages boggle my mind. Close reading suggests that
1. Zuckerman is narrating the occasion of the Kiss as part of his imaginary "realistic chronicle."
2. Swede is looking back and sincerely describing it differently.
If we accept Zuckerman's version as correct, here we have Zuckerman having Swede misrepresenting the events of the Kiss to himself, where no one can hear, inside his own brain which is being imagined by Zuckerman, inside an imaginary character inside an imagined realistic rendition of the story by Zuckerman. That layering and distancing certainly has to count as a tour-de-force for postmodernist style. Three cheers for Roth! I think. /scratching head/
In terms of literary significance for the story, it would seem that right there, in the earliest episode of the realistic chronicle, Zuckerman is deftly laying the groundwork for either regarding Swede's recollections as unreliable, or perhaps Swede himself as unreliable, or else showing Swede in denial with respect to the events as they happened.
That strikes me as very tightly woven and carefully constructed story-telling by Roth. Three cheers again for Roth! I think. That Zuckerman is no schlepper. :)
I agree that last question of the book is a doozy. But what about this one:"I dreamed a realistic chronicle..."
I believe Zuckerman is referring to the fact that he will use the techniques of realism to tell his part of the story. But the word dream suggests to me a degree of surrealism. So which is it, realism or surrealism?
Because I accept the it's-mostly-in-Zuckerman's-head interpretation, the novel has taken on a surrealistic feel for me. It does feel like a dream. A long, detailed dream.
Maybe Roth is attempting to create a dream-like feel in the reader as a way to get the reader to feel what's it's like to invent a story. Maybe he's trying to make the reader write the story, like a reader "writes" his own dreams. Heck, all those questions would even help spur the reader along.
If Roth is interested in examining the methods of story telling (I also believe this a story of raw materials), it could be that the Swede is telling himself a story about what really went on in the car.
I think Candy has a terrific insight here:
"It is a stroke of brilliance that Roth has written the Swedes transgression so that readers might actually think it was not significant...and I seem to recall Swede justifying his reasons for the kiss...."
Is this the kind of rewriting and re-interpreting that we engage in all the time? Is this the kind of process a writer employees?
It all leads me back to one of my original questions of the book--why bring sex into the story at all? Does the story work without sex?
Is it Roth just trying to be thorough, just trying to get people right? We know abuse of this kind is fairly common. Does Roth agree with Zuckerman that we get people wrong? We know incest is a fairly common fantasy. Or is Roth just trying to explore the boundaries of different kinds of love?
Or is Zuckerman presenting us with a demonstration of selective memory and re-imagination in the Swede? Is he suggesting that, in addition to getting other people wrong, we get outselves wrong, too? If a person's definition of himself is wrapped up in his definitions of his people, then it would only be natural to conclude that if we get other people wrong, we get ourselves wrong, too.
MAP I didn't get all worked up over the kiss because it was part of Zuckerman's imaginings. It does not weigh any more or less of an impression than pictures of monks self-immolating, or arguments with Lou Levov. It's just another possible cause in the run up, but not THE cause, since Zuckerman invents it. Which is exactly why Roth writes it that way instead of putting the kiss in Jerry's brief rant on Swede's life. MAP, I've been waiting for someone to say these very thoughts in just the way you have...what are we to make of a story that is fake? We should we invest in Zuckerman's story?
For the same reason we invest in any novel...they are after all fake and whether there is the device of suggesting a "realistic chronicle" a third party...a false protagonist..
Why do we get emotionally and intellectually invested in any novel?
American Pastoral has this device in a way of questioning all of our reading and caring about characters...isn't he a monkey?
MAP and all...my posts regarding "the kiss" definately seem to imply that I think the kiss is soley responsible for Merry's outcomes. No...I think it is more like all the factors in her development and life. A lethal combination of events. Which is based in what really does create a nihilist.
We forget hat all "terrorists" are actually not doing it because of beliefs, or causes or injustice...all terrorists are nihlisists. Hate is their soul made by disenfranchisement and alienation. Merry is an excellent portrayal of a nihilist competing with Conrads nihilists in The Secret Agent.
Nurture or nature?
Yes.
More on the monk suicide in a minute...
Russ, very kind of you to sort through my ridiculously repetitive posts...I was tired almost all the times I posted and of course repeating over and over isn't aiding this conversation.
Russ, the first passage page 91 is the one I found gross.
I think it is groundwork for finding Swede an "unreliable narrator" and ...the craziest...Zuckerman we KNOW is making this up...but as readers, as MAP points out...we dive in anyways!
We must...and we should!
Russ, to me the justification, the possibility that Swede has dismissed the kiss is not only that he acted as a pedophile...but he thinks like one too! It's part two of feeling grossed out by him.
If we decide to not trust our storyteller and we dismiss the kiss..."oh it's made up...it's fake"...then don't we have to dismiss everything told to us...every detail about Swede's "accomplishments" as well as his failures?
Andy,
I amswer your question the same way I do about nature or nurture...
So which is it, realism or surrealism?
Yes.
What we are seeing is a story that transcends our brains desire for polarity and labels and definitions...it just works. It shouldn't, should it? We should not care about these people...they aren't real. Zuckerman made them up!
But all our beloved characters and all our villians are made up.
Why do we care so much?
I also want to add..that I don't thnik the kiss is the only memory/scene written in such an "offhand" manner...so much of the story has this same kind of surreal pop pow style and speedy rush...
In some ways it is one of those novels that tells us about our skills as observers and thnkers...as much about ourselves as it does about the characters...
I have to run...Andy, I want to discuss some of the issues you raise about incest but I have written too much and must also go out.
I want to say...that it isn't just the incestuous kiss.
MAP, I agre e with...I'm trying to imagine what it must have been like to be a child or young person (and even an adult) and se someone kill themselves on film/tv. I have seen that same footage...but it was years after the events, and I was in my 20's. I found it terrible. T imagine seeing it as it happened...on tv...I can imagine a trauma. A break with reason. Hurt. Shcok. Nihilism.
Anywaays...I should take a break...a great many things about this novel make me sad...last night as I was on public transit I recalled the meeting between Merry and her dad when she was 19-20...their last meeting...and on the El train...my eyes welled up.
I've convinced Sara to read his novel and pipe in with her experience as a writer...and because I want to know what she thinks. She tried reading this years ago and hated it...and I was like "oh totally...can you push through in order to join discussion?"
She's gonna try...
I feel considerably outgunned in these discussions. The sweeping generalizations being made leave me totally behind.
We know incest is a fairly common fantasy.
I don't know that, and I remain skeptical until I see some reason for believing it. Same as with many of the sweeping comments about fathers kissing daughters, which have been pronounced here as being just simply so, with no further justification needed.
Sorry to be a grouch, but I think twice in a row now deserves comment.
I suppose anyone knows these things. I don't.
We know incest is a fairly common fantasy.
I don't know that, and I remain skeptical until I see some reason for believing it. Same as with many of the sweeping comments about fathers kissing daughters, which have been pronounced here as being just simply so, with no further justification needed.
Sorry to be a grouch, but I think twice in a row now deserves comment.
I suppose anyone knows these things. I don't.
Sorry Russ.Listen, I think maybe I don't understand how you could interpret the fathers kiss to his daughter in the novel as anything less than a violation.
Most girls would be haunted by such an intimate kiss by their fathers for the rest of their lives...combined with the subject matter the daughter wants to know about...adult inimacy. Such an act might even contribute to a diysfunctioning dating life or choices in future partners. I didn't think I would have to provide "proof" of this...and the only proof I can give you is my experience with my female friends...with female co-workers who have shared their life story or their sexual history with each other.
I am surprised that you do not have similar accounts among your friends Russ. Am I really alone in this experience? I do tend to be a person who has close and open friendships on many levels with many people. I assumed most people would have encountered the kind of story in a friend or neighbours life similar to Merry's kiss with her father.
I find when working in a restaurant/bar...one of the phenomenons is that within 10-15 minutes of working with each other...most staff know some sexual romantic history...preferences, relationships and within weeks people have shared a lot. It tends to go with the work environment...and also women tend to share a lot of their stories and emotional history with each other...or maybe it's just the women and friends I have. I may also have a social circle of people who tend to be open about their sexual lives and relationships...musicians and artists and actors and gay friendships do tend to have open sexual comfort levels and an urban environment may also harbour a more openly intimate set of history between people? Or this may be the most major aspect of a generation gap? I also have been in therapy, been in group workshops about racial tolerance and sexual tolerance for jobs I had working in the Canadian government (we have all kinds of interpersonal relations workshops if you are a civil servant or work with the public in Canada...you hear a lot of trauma accounts)
I had no idea my comments here would seem "sweeping" and questionable.
I am thinking maybe my friendships are based ona more intimate sharing of storytelling and soul searching than others? No, is that possible?
And..I don't have time right now...but actually Andy is "correct" regarding incest fantasies...or let me put it this way...
We have severe incest taboos in place within many cultures and societies around the world because there isn't a secret gene preventing incest...it is a taboo because it is something that is a very normal human possibility.
Russ, hold hope...I can give you sources on incest taboos and behaviour...but not at this moment...Andy is not making a strange sweeping argument or statement...he is making one that can be backed up by anthroppologists..in fact, I can find youa source with Marvin Harris later today, okay? I got a fair bit of material around the apartment on anthropology...yeah yeah...I'm an anthro nerd!
Later sportsfans...dont lose faith!
I thought a previous post of mine had clarified what I knew about fathers kissing daughters.
Absolute zippo!
To which your answer (paraphrased) was "Do I really have to explain it?"
But, I await.
Absolute zippo!
To which your answer (paraphrased) was "Do I really have to explain it?"
But, I await.
I think maybe I don't understand how you could interpret the fathers kiss to his daughter in the novel as anything less than a violation.
Candy, No one here has said it is ok to do such a thing, we all know it is not under any circumstances.
With the two quotes that Russ used from the book describing the kiss we get it both ways though. Now which is "true"? That's the 64 thousand dollar question. I tend to think that Swede is trying to placate his conscience, and it's not working too well.
On the other hand, as I mentioned previously it was a culmination of many things. The parents did not stand up for Merry with the grandparents. Part of that was Swede's inability to make a commitment to raising his child himself, and the kiss debacle was one more example of his dithering.
Candy, No one here has said it is ok to do such a thing, we all know it is not under any circumstances.
With the two quotes that Russ used from the book describing the kiss we get it both ways though. Now which is "true"? That's the 64 thousand dollar question. I tend to think that Swede is trying to placate his conscience, and it's not working too well.
On the other hand, as I mentioned previously it was a culmination of many things. The parents did not stand up for Merry with the grandparents. Part of that was Swede's inability to make a commitment to raising his child himself, and the kiss debacle was one more example of his dithering.
I think maybe I don't understand how you could interpret the fathers kiss to his daughter in the novel as anything less than a violation.
Candy, Maybe my language is less flamboyant than yours, if you'll read my post. But I grant you can't understand what you think I said.
Candy, Maybe my language is less flamboyant than yours, if you'll read my post. But I grant you can't understand what you think I said.
Candy,When I said that the kiss was part of Zuckerman's imaginings, I purposely did not use the word "fake". Fake implies a diminishing of the entire concept of incest that I did not intend.
Here is what I did intend: I don't believe that Roth intended for the kiss to be a show-stopper in this book. It is not meant for us to be so offended that we are put off the next few hundred pages.
So for us to go on here as if it is a show-stopper, doesn't make much sense for the discussion, and certainly does seem like a thread ender.
Oh, I forgot to mention that it could have also been the overly-religious grandmother who messed with Merry's head. Look, my husband works with abused and neglected kids every day. There are a zillion different ways in which parents can and do fail their children. Roth offers us several.
In all of my life I have never heard the subject discussed of a parent kissing a child on the lips. I have two daughters and I have never done it. I have never heard anything about anyone else doing it either.Russ, I do know families in which parents kiss children on the lips, and absolutely nothing is thought of it. The children are not traumatized; the adults would be horrified and insulted if someone implied that such a kiss had a sexual aspect to it. I was very surprised when I first saw it since my family does not kiss on the lips, but I really see it as a cultural difference.
The problem with Swede's kiss, of course, is that there was a sexual component, first in Merry's request, and second, in Swede's totally inappropriate response. Candy, I don't think that Swede was trying to initiate Merry into physical love, I just think that he was too weak to put up the necessary boundaries. He didn't know how to say no to Merry. He makes a horrible (and, I agree, disgusting) mistake, but I don't see it as the worst thing a parent could do. I think that the repercussions of pulling away from Merry because of his own guilt and discomfort probably had a deeper impact on Merry.
Has anyone seen the movie, "Eve's Bayou"? This is a superb film in which a similar father/daughter kiss leads to a very tragic outcome.
Hey Russ,I liked your 257. I think I was having a similar thought at the same time (actually, I tried to post mine the night before when the site was down.) I think we actually agreed!
*****
Several years ago I saw my friend kiss his mother on the lips. I was very surprised. But after a while I thought it seemed like a nice thing to do, so now I smack one on my own mom every now and again. She seems to get a kick out of it.
*****
Which is an awkward lead in to this bit I found on the World Wide Web:
Publishers Weekly:
"According to London psychotherapist and clinical researcher Kahr, virtually every sexually mature adult generates sexual fantasies that fulfill a wide variety of often unconscious psychological needs. What is the stuff of British and American erotic fantasies? Rape, infidelity, homosexuality, pedophilia, incest and, apparently for some Brits, kinky sex with the queen and Margaret Thatcher."
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Whos...
*****
And let's not forget the millions of people (85 millions copies sold) who have read books by VC Andrews.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43...
Popular books. Funny reviews.
*****
Happy Thanksgiving!
Andy, thanks and what a great post! "Very liberating," I can't resist saying. Something in there for everyone. Erm, "virtually everyone." And properly humorous for the jolly season coming up too. I'll be sure to take it with me to the proverbial desert isle, for when my fantasies show signs of slowing down. But the Brits always get the best. Dang! :)
I see we have "-1" new. Someone depart?
Oh my god...I lost it with the Margeret Thatcher! I owe you something Andy...dinner?...an original oil painting by a persevering yet undiscovered contemporary artist? A new car?Thank you for demonstrating I am not the only person here that seems willing/okay with talking about sex, human behaviour and other comedies.
I really don't know if I am going to recover from laughing about kinky se with the queen and M.T. My hand is actually shaking with my glass of iced coffee while I am laughing! In fact I woke up my husband...he yelled" what happened?" when he heard me howl in the kitchen on 'puter.
Okay...back to bidness.
MAP, I used the word fake as a trade for "Zuckerman's imaginings" and didn't mean it to be more diminishing of the "events" than imagination. Imagination is fake. So pardon my choice to use fake instead of imagination...and I will return to the subject at hand with the word imagination rather than fake.
MAP, I am no longer joking, or feeling as if my posts about incest and Merry and her fathers kiss are thread enders. Although I did joke I was a thread ender (about 20 posts ago)...the following posts by Andy and such are too good for me to agree with your suggesting I have that power to end a thread...ha...surely you can't believe the Constant Reader crew is so squeamish they can't/won't talk about uncomfortable...challenging human behaviour? I can not agree with your implications there.
Meanwhile MAP...you have said, in my opinion, one of the most profound observations about this novel...I am complimenting your observation, my love..a simple thank you will suffice hee hee!
MAP...you said that some events were not taken very seriously by you because they were Zuckerman's imaginings...I think this is profound.
Why should any of us readers take Zuckerman's imaginings any less seriously than Roth's imaginings?
(or Dickens, or Conrads, or Faulkners imaginings?)
Every novel is an imagining...is it more realististic if Roth "made it up" rather than Zuckerman?
Russ, and Pontalba, thank you, and I think we do have some sort of common ground...
Pontalba, I did read your posts and I agree with the idea that it was series of several events in the story. And MAP's husbands work anecdotes or perspective ties into this very neatly. True, no one said it was "okay" for Swede to kiss his daughter...but I believe some comments seemed to dismiss that it was a violation...or not so serious an occurance. I felt an over oall tone of the first 200 posts sounded like "poor Swede" that his daughter was either insane or a monster and had ruined his life. Thats all. I wanted to explore a different reading...seeing the family as culpable rather than victim.
Wilhelmina and Pontalba...I think both of you have made profound insights the repercussions of pulling away from Merry because of his own guilt and discomfort probably had a deeper impact on Merry.
I have not seen the movie Eve's Bayou...but will keep a look out for it.
I agree that there wasn't one single event that occurred to the child that made her nihilistic. I think there was a lethal combination of several traumatic events.
My feeling for analysing so many of the events recalled about Merry's childhood...or imagined...is that I feel there was a leaning in many of the posts here that this was a novel that told the story of a man who became a victim of his daughters actions. I don't think Swede is any kind of victim. I think he is King Lear.
Now...back to MAP's hint that there is a very funny question here...why should we take Zuckerman's imaginings any less seriously than Roth's?
And what a strange animal that we are that we do take novels and movies with fictional characters so seriously!
Russ,
Re your #269 post, last night I logged in momentarily and saw a post from Yulia...I wonder what happened, somehow it got dropped. Ratz.
Candy,
Re Andy's post...William F. Buckley wrote an amusing story years ago...Saving the Queen http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Queen-Bl...
It ties into certain Brit fantasies I'd say.
Re your #269 post, last night I logged in momentarily and saw a post from Yulia...I wonder what happened, somehow it got dropped. Ratz.
Candy,
Re Andy's post...William F. Buckley wrote an amusing story years ago...Saving the Queen http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Queen-Bl...
It ties into certain Brit fantasies I'd say.
Candy, Listening interestedly and awaiting developments.
And thanks.
Pontalba, Sounds like maybe that resolves the mystery. Otherwise all hands present and accounted for presumably.
And thanks.
Pontalba, Sounds like maybe that resolves the mystery. Otherwise all hands present and accounted for presumably.
And what a strange animal that we are that we do take novels and movies with fictional characters so seriously!
Candy, It's true we do take novels very seriously, mostly I suppose because we are living vicariously or have a 'there but for the grace of God go I' mentality about what we read. Of course we read to learn facts, but mostly I'd say I read to learn more about the human condition and I can't say that much people do could surprise me. But I/we can always learn from it.
I love a discussion like this because it is fascinating to me to see what people think of other human interactions. Real or false, it's the same difference....if one human can think of it and write it down, it has happened in reality. Not necessarily in the exact circumstance and order that the author has written, but again...the same difference.
Candy, It's true we do take novels very seriously, mostly I suppose because we are living vicariously or have a 'there but for the grace of God go I' mentality about what we read. Of course we read to learn facts, but mostly I'd say I read to learn more about the human condition and I can't say that much people do could surprise me. But I/we can always learn from it.
I love a discussion like this because it is fascinating to me to see what people think of other human interactions. Real or false, it's the same difference....if one human can think of it and write it down, it has happened in reality. Not necessarily in the exact circumstance and order that the author has written, but again...the same difference.
A novelist might consider the craft of writing as specifically and exhaustively as the Levov's consider glove making.
The person who wakes up and finds that they are famous hasn't been sleeping. Or at least, so I have been told. :)
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